LONGING FOR REAL PEACE

For a Child is born to us, a Son is given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders. And He will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. His government and its peace will never end. — Isaiah 9:6-7 NLT

The Jewish people of Jesus’s day who lived under the tyranny of Rome longed for when real peace — true cessation of enemy control — would come. And that’s what they thought when they heard Isaiah’s prophecy of a soon arriving Prince of Peace.

Naturally when Jesus was born, they thought He would usher in that peace. Hadn’t the angelic message heard by some shepherds included the words, “Peace on earth, and good will toward men?” But the events that followed didn’t measure up for many people.

Only those who understood the real peace that Jesus came to bring experienced it. But they did so in their hearts, and it wasn’t necessarily reflected in their government.

Is it really any different today? I long for wars to cease around the world and for confused and burdened lives to grasp the only kind of peace that lasts. It won’t come from our government or from world leaders. “It” already came over two thousand years ago. “It” was — and is — Jesus (Ephesians 2:14). This Prince of Peace is the One Who made it possible for us to know true peace — not a temporary cease fire — but a permanent truce with God. Only through Jesus can we find both peace with God — a joyful, loving relationship with Him — and the peace of God, the kind of reassurance that puts complete trust in Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Christmas is a great place to begin to understand that kind of lasting peace.